Burkhardt joins Chronicle newsroom

Upon leaving The Enterprise in 2011, Burkhardt worked for two years as a reporter and photographer for the Woodburn Independent, and then served for nearly three years as associate editor of the Hillsboro Tribune.

In August of last year, family considerations brought Burkhardt back to the Columbia River Gorge, and now he is pleased to be joining the staff of The Dalles Chronicle.

Burkhardt sums up his “old school” approach to community reporting this way: “We’re here to tell the stories of our community, good and bad; and all sides of any issue deserve to be aired fairly,” he said.

In addition to his lengthy career in newspaper journalism, Burkhardt — who grew up in Michigan near a mainline of the New York Central Railroad and became fascinated with the passage of trains – has published several photojournalistic books on rail transportation.

His latest book, Columbia River Gorge Railroads, was published in March of this year as part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of Modern America” series. It features color photographs of tracks and trains in scenic gorge landscapes, including a number of photos in and around The Dalles.

“The images in Columbia River Gorge Railroads reflect the art and magic of the steel rails that carry goods and passengers along both sides of the wide Columbia River,” Burkhardt said.

Burkhardt said he is proud of the history and tradition of newspaper journalism, and he took issue with a recent survey from “careercast.com” that showed being a newspaper reporter as the “No. 1 Worst Job for 2016” -- “worse than lawyers and pest exterminators,” in the words of one newspaper publisher.

“Surveys like the one from careercast are bogus and impossible to quantify,” Burkhardt said. “I have zero regrets about my many years in journalism. On the contrary. There were countless times I felt I was filling a critical function for the different communities where I’ve served, and enjoyed the challenge of working many extra hours to cover floods or wildfires or elections. If anything, it’s the world that has changed, with write-anything blogs and shout TV and hate radio blurring the lines of what real journalism is and the vital role it serves.”